It’s hard to think of two coaches in the world with such an apparent dislike of one another as Inter’s Jose Mourinho and Juve’s Claudio Ranieri.

Even Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have got on better of late and the only coach to have real gripes with new Argentina boss Diego Maradona is Scotland no. 2 Terry Butcher.

The feud between Mourinho and Ranieri, which comes to the boil in Saturday’s match between Serie A leaders Inter and in-form Juve, originated at Chelsea where the Special One took over from the sacked Italian in 2004 and promptly went and won two Premier League titles.

The usually modest Ranieri feels he deserves more credit for building up the Chelsea team ahead of Mourinho’s arrival (Petr Cech and Arjen Robben for example) but the confident Portuguese is having none of it, saying Ranieri’s English at Chelsea was laughable and implying the 57-year-old is past his sell by date.

Their contrasting styles and the already strong rivalry between the two clubs promises fireworks this weekend, with Juve able to join Inter at the top with a win. ‘Grudge match’ is a horrid cliche, but just this once I think it applies.

Inter v Juve is actually known as the ‘Derby of Italy’ because they have battled against each other for the title so often.

The rivalry is fiercer than Inter v AC Milan in many respects. Remember, Inter were given the title when Juve were stripped of the scudetto and demoted in 2006. Inter then signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira off their rivals to further infuriate fans of the Turin-based club.

Despite talk of the two managers making peace, they will probably end up disliking each other even more after Saturday.

PHOTO: Claudio Ranieri blows a kiss to Chelsea fans knowing his days are numbered at the London club back in May 2004 REUTERS

Like political pundits on local election night, football reporters can’t help reading too much into the results of international friendlies.

Pretty much the least interesting thing about England’s error-strewn 2-1 win over Germany in Berlin on Wednesday was the result, but there was food for thought in the performances of two under-strength teams.

1. England seem to bat quite a lot deeper than they used to, with a number of the players coming in doing good jobs. Barry and Carrick easily won their midfield battle with Rolfes and Jones, while Wright-Philiips was probably the best player in the pitch. Time for the Gerrard-Lampard partnership to be definitively retired?

2. England have never been short of confidence in the ability of their players as individuals, but what seems to be developing now is a collective confidence, which showed itself in the patient way they exercised control in the first half. (more…)

When you manage just 22 minutes in a charity friendly, it is usually a bad sign.

Brazilian Ronaldo was huffing and puffing after his short cameo in Morocco on Monday against a Zinedine Zidane XI and now he is seriously considering retirement.

“I don’t know if I will continue playing or retire. I still haven’t taken a decision,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “There is no rush. I could decide tomorrow or in a month. I really don’t know.”

The friendly was his comeback after a stop-start recovery from a second serious knee injury, which he sustained playing for AC Milan in February.

Even before he collapsed to the ground in agony, it was clear he was never going to come close to recapturing the sparkling form he showed at Barcelona, Inter Milan and occasionally Real Madrid.

Weight problems, injuries and question marks over his motivation have heralded the fall from grace. Milan’s PR machine was very clever in not making any public comment, and therefore not looking heartless, when they allowed his contract to run out in June with the world hardly taking notice.

Without a club, Ronaldo has turned down a solitary offer from midtable Serie A side Siena. Manchester City and Flemengo have been mentioned in the media as possible destinations but there seems little movement.

Would Ronaldo be better packing in now rather than soldiering on at an unfashionable club just for the sake of it?

If he carries on, will we remember his decline rather the way he fought back from injury to shoot Brazil to 2002 World Cup glory?

PHOTO: Time ticking away? Ronaldo sits on cones during a training session at Flamengo. Sept 8, 2008. Ronaldo trained with the Brazilian club as he went through a rehabilitation programme after he ruptured a tendon in his left knee playing for AC Milan. REUTERS/Bruno Domingos

Germany’s friendly against England at the Olympiastadion later on Wednesday will have the feel of a B international, given the absence of so many familiar players.

England are without Beckham, Gerrard, Rooney, Ferdinand, Heskey, Owen and a couple of Coles, and Theo Walcott has now joined the injured list. 

Germany are without four of their best known and most experienced players from the World Cup and Euro 2008 in Ballack, Lahm, Frings and Lehmann.

My colleague Martyn Hermann takes a look at the whole issue over on our main website. Martyn says the friendly has been rendered “almost meaningless” by the absentee list.

I think the qualifier “almost” is a pretty important part of that sentence.

I agree it’ll be pointless reading much into the result, but playing this sort of match at a venue like Berlin’s Olympic stadium is always a worthwhile exercise.

As Fabio Capello said at his eve-of-match press conference, it will be very interesting to see how the newcomers take to one of the more intimidating stages in European football.

When Germany played England at Wembley in 2007 the likes of Ballack and Frings were missing then too, along with senior players like Podolski, Klose and Schweinsteiger.

England had a more experienced and supposedly superior team yet players like Christian Pander, Piotr Trochowski and Thomas Hitzlsperger performed above their reputations to wrest control from a complacent England and claim a 2-1 win. Trochowski and Hitzlsperger are now fixtures in the team, and only injury is keeping Pander out.

Are there unheralded England players who can take their chance tonight? We’ll see…

PHOTO: Fireworks explode above the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, following Italy’s victory over France in the World Cup final, July 9, 2006. REUTERS/Toby Melville

Vlog on the Pitch host Owen Wyatt is in Glasgow to see the preparations for Diego Maradona’s first game in charge of Argentina.

Owen’s question today is a simple one: Will Diego’s journey end at Soccer City in Johannesburg with the final of the 2010 World Cup? Or is it destined to end badly…

Argentina  have the players to win the World Cup — with Messi and Riquelme to add to the squad assembled for the Scotland game — but does Maradona have enough experience to plot the path to glory?

Let us know in the comments, or even better, record your own vlog, let us know where it is, and if we like it we’ll embed it here.

Catania’s Gianvito Plasmati engaged in an unusual bit of distraction when he pulled down his shorts before team mate Giuseppe Mascara curled in a freekick during a 3-2 Serie A win over Torino.

According to Italy’s referees’ chief and former top official Pierluigi Collina, showing off your underpants to a rival goalkeeper counts as unsporting behaviour and deserved a yellow card.

“It was a student joke,” Plasmati said. “It certainly wasn’t a lack of respect for opponents and the public.”

At first no one noticed Plasmati’s stunt because pundits were more concerned with Catania’s controversial tactic of building their own wall, five metres behind the Torino wall, and then charging forward in time to avoid being offside when Mascara took the kick.

Catania boss Walter Zenga also got into trouble this weekend when he told a television interviewer to watch his back and take care of his family during an extraordinary rant.

What do you make of Catania’s antics? Are they refreshing or a bit too silly? They are certainly helping the modest club punch above their weight in Serie A.

Even manager Arsene Wenger has no clue which version of Arsenal will turn up to matches at the moment.

The one that swept aside Manchester United last week with a dazzling brand of football, thrashed Blackburn Rovers 4-0 away and dismantled Fenerbahce in Istanbul or the one that lost at home to Hull City, got bullied into defeat at Stoke City and was well-beaten 2-0 at home by Aston Villa last weekend.

Wenger moaned about a lack of consistency, while goalkeeper Manuel Almunia said that changes were going to be needed if Arsenal are to mount a serious challenge for the title.

While on their day they are the best team to watch in England, they are also extremely fragile. (more…)

David Villa had a trip down memory lane this weekend when Valencia hosted Sporting Gijon in the Primera Liga, the Asturian club where he began his professional career.

The Spanish international striker announced before the match that he would not celebrate if he scored.

“I will not celebrate out of respect for the team which saw me born as a professional and which helped be become who I am,” the 26-year-old said.

Villa was true to his word, showing no sign of pleasure when he netted from the penalty spot in Valencia’s 3-2 defeat.

It was a nice nod of the head to a club Villa clearly still loves, but I wonder if Valencia fans are completely happy about it. Shouldn’t highly paid professionals be giving their hearts, minds and bodies to the cause of their employers? (more…)

Real Madrid were knocked out of the King’s Cup by third-tier Real Union this week and Chelsea lost to second division Burnley in the Carling Cup, but which sides were really celebrating?

Chelsea would much rather concentrate on the Premier League while Real need to focus on the Champions League after two defeats.

In Italy, the Coppa Italia is fast becoming one of the biggest jokes in football. The last 16, the first round where the big clubs enter, has been spread across a two-month period for various strange reasons.

Wednesday’s game between Udinese and Reggina was played in mid-afternoon and from the television pictures I could not see a single fan in the stadium. There were probably a few die-hards behind the camera but they saw one of the most error-ridden games in history.

The Cup is realistically the only trophy Udinese and Reggina can win this season and yet even they played reserve sides. 

Top players were also rested in the other domestic cups this week, which surely diminishes the achievements of the smallers sides who cause ‘upsets’ and don’t gain as much revenue as they used to now that most competitions are no longer over two legs. 

Joe in his blog was very positive about the Carling Cup, and Arsenal’s youth side do play some wonderful stuff, but how many of that team will ever make it in the Premier League given that Arsenal’s first team is so young anyway?

The fact England has two cups has always baffled me. The FA Cup dwarves the Carling Cup and yet it too has suffered a credibility crisis in recent seasons. 

If we were to scrap all of Europe’s other domestic cups, my colleague Kevin has come up with the wonderful idea of keeping the world famous FA Cup and each year inviting different European powerhouses to play in it like Real and Barca or Milan and Juve.

So how about it, has the time come to bite the bullet and axe domestic cups which very few people care about?

PHOTO: Burnley players run in celebration as they defeat Chelsea in a penalty shoot-out in their Carling Cup match at Stamford Bridge, Nov. 12. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

It has taken only a week for Diego Maradona’s appointment as coach to turn the Argentina national side into something approaching a cabaret.

A squabble over the choice of Maradona’s assistant escalated into a saga this week which culminated with the country’s plethora of news and sports cable channels splashing the headline “Maradona to quit?” across the screen.

Maradona’s impulsive and volatile personality was always going to be a worry in his new job, but few can have imagined that it would have surfaced so quickly and over such a relatively minor matter. (more…)